


Explanations

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (that tag amuses me a lot), Black Light, Cipher Wheel, Conversations, Dimension 52 (mentioned), Explanations, Fearamid (mentioned), Grunkle Stan Has Issues, Journal 2 - Freeform, Journal 3, Mistakes, Nicknames, Old Men on a Boat Talking About Their Past, Pines Family Bonding, Post-Weirdmageddon, Sea Grunkles, Stan O' War II, Stan twins - Freeform, Swearing, TRUST NO ONE, The Original Pines Twins, The Past, Weirdmageddon (mentioned), Written in one sitting, also originally i had a different idea but it kinda, blood mention, cursing, i did a lot of research in the blacklight edition of journal 3 for this, morphed itself into this y'know what i mean, post-show, unbetaed, writing is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11803110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: As Stan looks through his brother's old journals, he has some questions. Ford has some answers.





	Explanations

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to write this FOREVER and I finally found some motivation so here's this piece o' crap!!

"You know, if you'd drawn it this way, we wouldn't’ve ended up fighting about holding hands."

Stan's voice was loud in the comfortable silence that had fallen between the two men, belowdecks on the Stan O'War II. Ford was cataloguing the latest anomaly they'd come across, a small white orb that had attempted to lead both men off the boat and into the water on several occasions with a subtle, melodic tune. Stan had taken to looking through his brother's old journals, which had been found intact some time after Weirdmageddon had ended. Now that he wasn't focused on trying to build the portal to bring Ford back, it was interesting to pore over the words, the codes, the symbols. All three of the journals had their own sort of flow, and Stan had found himself getting lost in the second, as the third was a little more painful for him to read. 

"Sorry?" Ford looked up, brow creased in confusion.

"The prophecy," Stan clarified, pointing down to the journal page he'd been studying. "If you'd'a drawn it like you did here, we wouldn't've been next to each other."

“It wasn’t like I had a lot of time, Stanley,” Ford pointed out, reaching out and silently asking for him to hand the journal over. Stan obliged, passing it across the table and huffing out a laugh. 

“Maybe not, but you had enough time to draw a perfect goddamn circle on the ground, Poindexter. You could’ve at least--” 

“It wouldn’t have worked.” Ford cut Stan off, his nose buried in the journal as he studied the page. Unless Stan had come to him with specific questions, Ford had seemed to avoid looking through the journals. (When Stan had called him on it, Ford had sighed heavily and told him that the mistakes of his past weren’t worth repeating, and Stan had left it alone.) “The order of the symbols is of great importance. The one that I created in the Fearamid was a replica of--” Here, he paused, flipping to an empty page in the journal he was currently writing in about their adventures in the Arctic and setting to drawing what seemed to be a replication of the spray-painted collection of symbols he’d made in the Fearamid. “It was a replica of something I discovered in my interdimensional travels.” Stan flinched a little, immediately glad that his brother was looking elsewhere. “Have you read through any of the events I recorded after returning through the portal?” At this, Ford did glance up, but Stan only furrowed his brow and shook his head. Ford nodded. “I didn’t think so.” He dropped his pen on the table, circle of symbols now completed in front of him, and reached for the journal with the three on the front. Stan nudged it in his direction, and he gave a little smile of thanks before opening it and flipping directly to the end of the journal. “The M Dimension, the Do-Over Dimension…” Ford seemed to be muttering to himself, and Stan hadn’t bothered to get as far in the third journal. He’d looked at the page to complete the portal before his brother had been recovered, and he’d stopped when the journal began to get more intense after the fact. “Ah. Here it is: The Oracle.” 

“The what?” 

“Not the what, Stanley. The who.” Ford flipped the book over and passed it back to Stan, who accepted it gingerly. 

The page that Ford had opened the journal to was nearly at the end of the book. A drawing of what seemed to be a woman with many eyes in a hooded robe stared up at him, and Stan felt a chill go down his spine. Even through the drawing, it almost felt like she was staring right through him. There were drawings behind her of some sort of squiggly reptile-looking creature, and on the next page, a mansion on a hill with the words “DIMENSION 52” stood above a passage in his brother’s cramped, cursive handwriting. 

“The Oracle--” Ford continued as Stan studied the page, damn near enraptured by the sight of it. “Was a creature that I met on my interdimensional travels. She saved my life.” He paused, a wry smile passing over his features. “She was the one who put the metal plate in my head.” He knocked on his head for emphasis, the dull metallic sound echoing through the small room momentarily. “Her name was Jheselbraum the Unswerving, and she was… well, to be completely honest, I don’t know much about her. While I was recovering from the surgery, we spoke in great length about Bill.” Stan’s shoulders went tense at the mention of the triangular demon. “I mentioned the prophecy I had discovered, the way that I had summoned him--” 

“ _ What _ ?” The word flew unbidden from Stan’s lips, but he made no attempt to take it back as Ford looked up at him, eyebrows raising. He’d never exactly been one to mince words. “ _ You _ summoned him?” 

Something nervous passed over Ford’s features then, fragile and terrified, and Stan had to force himself to stop there, to wait for an explanation. He’d been getting better at reading his brother, a skill he’d had to relearn. Between the years they’d spent separated before the portal and then the years Stan had spent to get Ford back --not the mention the fact that a lot of Stan’s childhood memories were still just out of reach in his fuzzy, foggy mind-- it had taken time to repair not only the bond between them, but the physical connection as well. 

“I-- I hadn’t realised that I’d never told you how Bill ended up in Gravity Falls,” Ford finally said, his voice careful. He was treading lightly, Stan noted immediately. 

“I think you just did,” Stan responded dryly, and Ford’s face reddened some. 

“...Right.” Ford cleared his throat, fingers fumbling absently with the pen on the table in front of him. “I-- Well, Stanley, it is… difficult, for me to admit it, but I was the one who…” Ford swallowed, straightening up a little in his seat. “I was the one who summoned Cipher in the first place. I was young and naive, and he was  _ very _ persuasive.” Ford shivered, and it was then that Stan realised that Ford wasn’t just treading lightly for his sake. This was obviously something he’d had to wrestle with, which made sense, because Ford had basically released a demonic hellspawn on a town full of unwitting hicks. Stan attempted to soften his own features some, and when Ford glanced at him, he did seem to relax when he realised that there was no anger being directed his way. “He tricked me into thinking that we were equals, that he had  _ chosen _ me, to guide me along some great path of scientific discovery.” A self-deprecating laugh slipped through Ford’s lips. “It was all bullshit. Of course it was all bullshit. But by the time I realised the truth…” Ford reached for the third journal again, flipping back through the pages until he’d landed on a pair that could only be described as  _ madness _ . Eyes that were obviously supposed to look like Cipher’s lined the page, with crisp spatters of what could only be blood dotting the corners. Red letters stood out against the scribbled-out blackness of pen that covered most of the two pages, and  _ this… This  _ was the reason that Stan had stopped reading the third journal. Because this has been a stage of Ford’s life that had been muddled in chaos and death, and Stan… Well, he would never admit it aloud, but it scared the hell outta him. 

“It was too late.” Ford’s voice was quiet, and Stan glanced up to see him staring down at the page, too. He stood, walking over and depositing the orb in one of the metal safe boxes that Fiddleford had helped him design. He gestured for Stan to give him a moment, and Stan nervously flashed him a thumbs up, watching him walk into the adjoining bedroom. He came back out only moments later, which helped soothe the sudden fear that Ford was just going to  _ stop talking _ , a strange device clutched in his hand. 

“What’s--” Stan began to ask, but cut himself off as Ford retook the seat across from him and flicked a switch. A deep purple light shone from a bulb that Stan hadn’t noticed, and he recognised it as a black light, not unlike the one his nephew had carried around for the last few weeks before Weirdmageddon had come upon them. Silently, Ford shone the light over the journal, and more words appeared on top of the ones in red, shining under the light and making themselves known. 

“When I realised what he was planning, I did my best to stop him. I was only human, though. I couldn’t do it on my own.” Ford flipped the page, and Stan sucked in a breath. If the spatter of blood had seemed bad on the previous page, these two looked like a fucking massacre. An image of Cipher, drawn darkly and overlaid with a glowing outline, sat starkly on the left side. It was a reminder of all that had been lost. “Every time I slept--” He flipped the page again. “He was there. He took over my mind when I slept, Stan. He was there, and I’d made a deal with him, and there was no way…” He shook his head, gesturing to the image drawn, of taped-open, bloodshot eyes. “There was no way to keep him out. One way or another, he would have gotten his way.” There was silence that seemed to last an eternity, and then finally, Ford flicked the light off again. 

“I never should have summoned him. I know that now. And I know that everyone in Gravity Falls suffered for my mistakes.” When Stan finally looked up, it was to see Ford, his head bowed. He’d never  _ seen  _ his brother look so… shameful. It didn’t fit. “Especially you, Stanley.” 

Hand moving of its own accord, Stan found himself reaching out, resting it against Ford’s, the hand that was still tightly clutching the black light. “Hey, Sixer… We made it through. We kicked that idiot’s ass. He shoulda known better than to mess with the Pines twins, eh?” He mustered up a grin at Ford’s surprised look, and slowly, that surprise melted into a weak smile of his own. 

“Both sets of Pines twins,” he agreed, his fingers loosening around the light. Stan held the contact for another moment before nodding and pulling away again, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. 

“Ahem…” He cleared his throat, shaking his head as though to clear it. (It was a habit he’d developed sometime after regaining his memory, and while Ford had yet to comment on it, he knew they’d both noticed.) “Anyways. You were tellin’ me about the circle thing before we got all sappy.” 

Ford blinked, and then looked down, shifting the third journal and then flipping carefully back to the page describing The Oracle. 

“Right… So I was.” A pause. “Where was I?” 

Stan’s hand went from the back of his neck to his head, scratching briefly at it before he dropped his hand back down to the table. “You told The Oracle that you summoned Cipher,” he prompted, and Ford glanced down at the books spread open in front of him. 

“...Yes. I did. And I showed her the wheel of symbols I had found.” He pointed to the second journal, where the symbols that had started the discussion were still face-up on the page. “She explained that not only was there a way to summon him with those symbols, but that there was a way to banish him as well. And she showed me this.” Ford pointed to the circle he’d just drawn. “Which led me to draw it in the Fearamid. I don’t know what it would have done. I assumed that the power of the ten people represented by the symbols would have been enough to banish Bill back to the Nightmare Realm, where he had come from.” He trailed off, and Stan looked up at him to see him lost in thought. After a moment, he blinked, and seemed to snap back to himself, staring straight at Stan. 

“Jheselbraum also told me that I had the face of the man destined to defeat Bill.” 

The statement hung heavy in the air between them, and at first, Stan merely stared uncomprehendingly back at his brother. Of  _ course  _ he had the face of the person that was gonna defeat Cipher; he  _ had _ defeated Cipher. If Ford hadn’t pulled the trigger on that memory gun, there wouldn’t have been any way to get rid of him. But… Ford was still staring at him expectantly, and there was no way that he actually thought…

“ _ Me _ ?” Stan sounded as flabbergasted as he felt, and Ford’s small smile didn’t help any with his confusion. “Ford, I didn’t do jack shit! All I did was sit there like a doofus while you shot at me!” He didn’t miss the way the smile fell away, or the flinch at the reminder of what had had to be done, but he was too goddamn confused to care. “ _ You  _ defeated Cipher.  _ You  _ pulled the trigger.” 

“But  _ you _ sacrificed yourself for us, Stanley.” Ford’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, though it never lost the gruffness that they had both gained in their old age. “Even  _ if  _ I’d had the ability to let Bill back into my mind… I don’t know if I could have done it. I’ve always been so concerned about myself, about my own abilities, about what I can share with the world… But  _ you _ were the one who offered to give up your mind for the greater good. The Oracle was right; I have the face of the man who defeated Bill. But  _ I  _ didn’t defeat him. You did.” 

Stan found himself unable to speak, the weight of his brother’s statement resonating with him. His entire life, Ford had been the one who did everything right. Ford was the smart one. He was the one who had a plan. Stan was just the clown. He was stupid and immature and broke things like some sort of bull in a china shop. For Ford to look at him square in the eye and tell him, with no lack of certainty, that  _ he  _ had been the one who’d saved them when they’d needed a hero the most? It was… 

Well. It was a lot, that was for damn sure. 

Surreptitiously --or at least, what Stan hoped was surreptitiously-- he found himself bringing up a hand to swipe at eyes that had suddenly filled with traitorous tears. From the look Ford was giving him, though, he was pretty sure he’d failed. 

“Weren’t you doin’ research or somethin’?” Stan muttered, tugging the nearest journal closer to him and sticking his nose in it without registering what he was reading. Ford actually laughed at that, and he reached over the table to pat Stan’s hand lightly before standing to go and retrieve the orb again. 

As silence fell between the two brothers once more, Stan found himself feeling lighter, and he turned slowly to the beginning of the third journal, more prepared than he ever had been to face the demons his brother had recorded inside of it.

**Author's Note:**

> YO I hope you enjoyed! I just really like writing about these old farts hangin' out on a boat talkin' about their feelings. 
> 
> I have the black light edition of Journal 3, and let me TELL YOU, I did my research. (I also figured out one of the codes as I was writing this and had to take a break because there were LITERAL tears in my eyes.) I sat here flipping through the journal as I was writing it, and the pages referenced are the "My Muse was a Monster" page, the Bill Cipher page, and The Oracle page. I also referenced the Cipher Wheel page of the second journal. 
> 
> I don't know. There's just that ///inconsistency/// with the way that the Cipher Wheel is drawn out in the journal/flashback that Ford has while explaining it and then the way he actually paints it on the floor. I saw one theory while trying to figure out why that was and it just... inspired me to write this, I guess. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are love!


End file.
